Question: Is it a woman’s fundamental right to take the life of a helpless infant in her womb if she so chooses?

There is a strong block in this country which insists that it is based on the Supreme Court’s split decision in Roe v. Wade.

Back in March of 1994, the U.S. State Department sent an “action cable” to all its embassies instructing them to tell their host governments: “The United States believes that access to safe, legal and voluntary abortion is a fundamental right of all women.”

John Leo, writing in U.S. News & World Report (Sept. 19, 1994), stated: “The use of the term ‘fundamental right’ was part of an aggressive U.S. lobbying effort at the 1994 Cairo Population Conference” where abortion was being promoted as a component of a population control policy.

“It was a breathtaking leap,” Leo continued, “since abortion is nowhere outside of North America considered a fundamental right.” This State Department memo amounted to an attempt to impose the ideological structure of Roe v. Wade on the rest of the world, thereby overriding the religious beliefs, laws and customs of other countries.

Leo added, “Most Third World nations are heavily dependent on U.S. foreign aid, so the implication left hanging in the air was that resistance to the concept of abortion as a fundamental human right might prove costly to the member nations. The March cable made it clear that the U.S. intended to play hardball, stating that ‘senior-level diplomatic interventions’ with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would advance U.S. population policy interests.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Catholic bishops at the time quoted a Guatemalan government minister as saying, “If I do not go along on abortion, there goes my aid money.”

American cultural imperialism did not begin after Sept. 11, 2001; the U.S. has been flexing its muscles for many years. How did the world react to that State Department memo in 1994? Pope John Paul II intervened and got about 30 other nations to oppose the U.S. in its efforts to foist on the whole world the idea of abortion as a “fundamental right of all women.”

The Clinton administration quickly backed down, and by the end of the week the U.S. abortion policy was removed from the family planning section of the Cairo conference. Clinton won his election with 43 percent of the votes; half of the voters considered abortion to be immoral.

Speaking the Truth and Instructing the Faithful

The Catholic Church may have its faults and issues on the human level, and we apologize for our sins, but the Church must always strive to speak the truth with love and to instruct the faithful to follow God’s will.

In favoring principle over the expediency of the moment, the Church stands as a beacon of light in a darkened world. The Church always has the right to oppose immorality even if a large majority is for it.

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to guide the Church to love the sinner but hate the sin. This means that we are for women, not against them. The Church has made a monumental effort all over the world to help women who are in post-abortion distress. The Church is the mystical body of Christ on earth.